Blue Mountains (April 12)

Aight, well this one contains animals, so it'll be a longer one. We hopped on a 1/2 price day trip to the Blue Mountains a few hours out of Sydney. It was a promising start to the day when we pulled into a weigh station and saw wild kangaroos outside out window. This was shot through the bus window.




We got to the Scenic World train & skyline rides which take you to and from the boardwalk several hundred meters below. It was nice, but suffers from the fate of many wilderness boardwalks: lots of trees, and not much else. I'd rather hike through the woods but that's something to do next time I s'pose. It was neat cause I didn't really associate Australia with vast forests, but since I wasn't heading to the Outback, this is what I saw most often.

Before heading down to the boardwalk, we had to take photos with the statues.




The Blue Mountains' most famous site is likely the "Three Sisters." It's kind of cool, but if I hadn't been told those were the Three Sisters, I prolly wouldn't have caught them. The view from the top was impressive, and weather was great. Not cold, but not baking hot either. It reminded me of Toronto's cottage country, which I believe is defined as any place outside of Toronto. Since Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, everything is backwards. Thus, they have Christmas in July. Traditionally, December 25th means a nice ham dinner and exchanging of gifts. It's also the middle of summer, so it doesn't feel Christmas-y. July 25th up in the Blue Mountains is fairly chilly, so the lights go up, and chestnuts are roasted and turkeys are cooked. I thought it was pretty cool, but the more cynical me realized this was a scam to sell more gifts.




After the Blue Mountains, we headed to the Featherdale Wildlife Park. I was excited cause you got to walk around with some of the animals, much like at the Big Apple on the way to Ottawa (Colbourg, Colburn? Something like that, near exit 500ish on the 401 I think). Except instead of bunnies, they had kangaroos, wallabies & emus frolicking about the park. Imagine my surprise and where my expectations were when I saw the Featherdale sign.




Let me spoil this for you, like it was spoiled for me. That is apparently just a cute little logo. There were no koalas riding kangaroos anywhere in the park. I felt like it was a bait-and-switch. Lure them in with the promise of animals comically riding other animals...and then bam, nothing.

The kookaburra of the ol' gum tree fame was also within spitting distance. They were very calm around people, and would occasionally burst into their very distinctive call. It's like our loon I'd say. But it's not yet on their $1 coin. Probably because people would start calling them kookies.




Of course the koalas were as cute as a bug's ear. All of them were passed out on various tree branches and oblivious to the noise and camera flashes around them. I did pet one, not as soft as I would have imagined, and more claw-y. I'm sure they'd be delicious though.




The cassowaries were cool. Like ostriches, but more colourful and more deadly. Here's a tip for the uninitiated. The cassowaries are behind fences for a reason. Like the explanation of the raptors in Jurassic Park, these birds have a long sharp disembowelling claw that they enjoy using. And these particular birds didn't take to kindly to me putting my hands over the fence to get an unobstructed shot. So they sauntered over to me, and while I wasn't nervous about the claw since there was a fence, they were taller than me. And I think a peck to the face would really put a damper on my day.




Hopping about one of the fenced off areas were the wallabies, roos, and emus. The emu there was a nervous creature, like the weird kid with a bad haircut at your grade 8 school dance who made quick darting glances, and shuffled around awkwardly.* I really wanted to feed it, but seeing as it was one of those tall, possibly face-pecking birds, I dropped my feed when it came close. I'm so brave.

Most of my time was watching & feeding the roos & wallabies (which look exactly the same, I'm thinking it's a distinction like crocs & alligators). They were not the big Red Kangaroos, which are more aggressive & less predictable (& more tasty). One of the roos was up to something. He hopped over to one of the gates, and it was rudely closed on his face. Undeterred, he hopped over to the other gate, which was also closed. I don't know where he was planning on going, but I'm guessing if he was really smart, he would have just jumped over the gate. You're kangaroo for God's sake! He was also unfazed by my verbal taunting, and proceeded to lick himself.




I just thought this was a funny sight. I'm sure this happens all the time in the wild.




There were a ton of other animals of course, you can check the gallery (as a reminder, if there's an associated gallery with any post, you can click on the title to go directly there). There were dingos, but they are just dogs. So I only took one bad shot of one. Just imagine a dog. It was really cute and furry, and apparently if you get a special license, you can own one as a pet. The only other animal that I really wanted to see was a platypus, but it was nowhere to be found.

Next stop: Melbourne

about Australia, from Germany